An Obsession with All Things Handmade and Home-Cooked

Fall Flavors

Seasonal transitions can be rough, especially when they feel so abrupt. Leaves began to blush and fall overnight, as temperatures suddenly plunged back into sock-and-shoe territory. The distinct scent of earth fills the cool air, refreshing after a sweltering summer but still jarring nonetheless. Unlike the change over from winter to spring, which drags on endlessly through the first half of the year, this is an efficient changing of the guard; autumn is here, no doubt about it. Still scrambling to adjust, the best way that I’ve found to wrap my mind around the loss of stone fruits, corn, and fresh herbs is to concentrate on the new flavors to be found. Focusing on the positives, fall has just as many delicious tastes to look forward to!

What follows is a brief list of ingredients that first come to mind when I think of the season, along with recipe suggestions to inspire further autumnal appreciation. By no means exhaustive and not necessarily things that are found solely in seasonal cooking, this is simply what fall tastes like to me.

I can’t get enough kale during fall, especially with a caramelized sweet potato and some quinoa! I was just catching up on blogs this morning and reading through some of your recent posts and I just wanted you to know how beautiful and inspirational your blog is Hannah!

Also I have to admit that I’m jealous of the chilly fall days and crisp air that you are adjusting to… it’s been hot as summer in southern California this week and I don’t like it one bit– I miss seeing the fall colors that I grew up with in Wisconsin, and I want to join the rest of the (northern hemisphere) internet and revel in pumpkin-everything and warming soups.

You pretty much hit the nail on the head with the fall flavors. I was looking at my to bake list yesterday and realized that it was all apple, caramel, pumpkin, pear and speculoos. Berries are terrific, but fall just tastes so much better to me.

Despite the fact that I dread winter, the transition from summer to fall is my favorite. Probably because fall in Colorado is just so gorgeous. I love the crisp air and trees full of gold leaves, studded with the occasional green holdout. That being said, I love cinnamon and apple flavors and making all kinds of soups!

For me chanterelle mushrooms are one of autumn’s stars! But it also the time of year when I think about game, pheasant, partridges and venison are all great for their rich flavours – I recently made a partridge tagine for the first time and it was not only a great success but the partridges were amazingly cheap at £3.65 each.

That is one tasty list of flavors! We had a stinkin’ heat wave here this week so I haven’t even begun to think about fall flavors yet, but I’ve been yearning for all the pumpkin I’m seeing pop up on the blogosphere lately! I got a few apples in my CSA box this week, which was pretty exciting.

Mmm. It looks like you’ve covered all the bases! My list is almost identical, except that mine would include a decidedly un-autumnal ingredient—maple syrup. Hey, it flows in my very veins; how could I go one season without it? Okay, if I had to replace it, it’d be brown sugar.

Spending my first Fall outside of Canada has actually consisted of its own difficult transition. Where were the pumpkins? I want to go apple-picking! Why don’t Italians sell brown sugar? Slowly but surely, the leaves are starting to change, even while we’re still immersed in summery temperatures, and the delicious smell of Fall—what my sister and I call “Halloween smell”—is among us. And, though I craved apple crumble without actually having brown sugar, I simply added… wait for it… maple syrup to demerara sugar and voilà! Canadian Autumn in Italy.